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Since trading of voluntary carbon offsets first took off in the late 2000’s, voluntary carbon projects have helped to reduce, sequester, or avoid over 437.1 MtCO2e–equivalent to not consuming over one billion barrels of oil. These projects are supported by companies, individuals and governments purchasing carbon offsets, whose growing demand resulted in a record-high of […]

Trade Trends and Due Diligence Risks

By Brian Schaap and Kerstin Canby

China has imported more than 46 million cubic meters of logs from countries with log export bans from 2005 to 2016. Many of these imports are in violation of log export bans (LEBs) and present a risk to Chinese companies – and their down-stream buyers of processed wood products in North America and Europe – that these logs are illegally sourced. […]

The State of the Supply Chain Movement: Progress on Corporate Commitments and Impact at the Forest Frontier

Since the 2010 Consumer Goods Forum Deforestation Resolution, more than 473 companies have made commitments to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. With 70% of deforestation linked to the production of agricultural commodities, these pledges hold the promise of making a major contribution to the end of tropical deforestation. This raises two questions: 1) What […]

A new framework supports national and global cost estimates

This paper summarizes a new analysis of the costs of illegal conversion of tropical forests for export-driven industrial agriculture. It synthesizes a proposed theoretical framework for exploring impacts of illegal conversion on financial capital, natural capital, political capital, and human/social capital. A global minimum cost per hectare to forest countries of illegal agro-conversion is estimated,[…]

Evolution from voluntary to regulated approaches in reducing the undesirable impacts of global trade

Over the past seventy years the rapid expansion of international trade and the growth of international supply chains, with various stages of production processes located in different countries, has at the same time facilitated the growth of trade in “undesirable products” associated with “global public bads”: trade in goods which are produced illegally or unsustainably […]

Lessons from the IKEA model in Vietnam

By Nguyen Vinh Quang, To Xuan Phuc, Nguyen Ton Quyen, Cao Thi Cam

Export-oriented wood processing companies in Vietnam are increasingly entering into legally-binding contractual relationships with smallholder producers – the country’s main source of domestically-grown plantation timber. One of the best examples of this “linkage model” is the partnership between households in Vietnam’s mountainous areas and companies that specialize in processing FSC-certified wood products for IKEA. This […]

UNFF13 Background Analytical Study

By Michael Jenkins and Brian Schaap

The world’s forest ecosystems provide critical and diverse services and values to human society. As primary habitat for a wide range of species, forests support biodiversity maintenance and conservation. Yet, continuing forest loss worldwide negatively impacts the livelihoods of millions of people and poses major challenges to sustainable development, in part because these forest ecosystem services continue to be […]

Problematic intersections between the trade of forest-risk commodities and land grabbing in the Mekong region

The fragmentary adoption of REDD+ across forest nations leaves room for the displacement of deforestation from early-adopters and countries with more rigorous carbon-related regulatory regimes to late-adopters of REDD+. While this displacement is expected to be substantial, our empirical understanding of the causal pathways of transboundary displacement remains weak. Our research addresses this lacuna, focusing[…]

“Zooming In” presents new analysis by Forest Trends’ Supply Change Initiative and Ceres about how companies that are committed to addressing commodity-driven deforestation are tracing supplies to their origin—be it factory, farm, field, or forest—so they can determine the impact their supply chains have on forests. Companies with exposure to deforestation in their supply chains […]

This report identifies the sources of funding currently available for REDD+ and climate action in forests, and analyzes the challenges and opportunities for accessing and coordinating this finance. It serves as a resource for negotiators, policymakers, practitioners, NGOs, and others involved with the implementation of REDD+ and climate action in forests. Among other things, the […]